


The Lucky One

by aeriamamaduck



Series: Cyrodiil's Child [13]
Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Guilt, Martin your dragon is showing, Revenge, Separate HoK and Listener
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 23:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4281930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeriamamaduck/pseuds/aeriamamaduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cloud Ruler receives word of a heinous assassination carried out by the Dark Brotherhood, and Minerva is left with unspent rage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lucky One

_Thwack!_

The practice dummy did not have the fault of it. It wasn’t the target she wanted to slice to death. 

Of course someone had already beaten her to the real target.

Minerva paid no heed to the snow falling on the training yard. Fury fueled the heat coursing through her body as she kept attacking the wooden dummy with the practice sword. She should have been happy.

No. Rather she should have been grieving for the loss of such a dutiful son to the Empire. An exemplary Captain in the Legion and one of the finest men in Cyrodiil. 

She so wanted to be happy that Adamus Phillida had been killed in such an undignified way, but instead she was furious beyond her own comprehension. Her limbs were beginning to tire but she refused to stop hitting the dummy until she could somehow convince herself that she was killing Phillida all over again.

The shame pricking at the back of Minerva’s mind threatened to overwhelm her, so she focused on the anger and hurt. The momentary exultation upon learning of his death.

It was Burd who had brought the news. Captain Phillida had finally retired to Leyawiin, and he’d suddenly been struck down by a Dark Brotherhood assassin who had proceeded to slice of the finger wearing a Legion signet ring. It had been found in the desk of Phillida’s successor days later.

Minerva had felt neither shock nor the compulsion to commend the man’s soul to Arkay upon hearing this. In truth she’d been hard-pressed to hide her joy. Phillida had tried to humiliate her, tried to break her mind and body by leaving her in the darkness of that cell, every part of her aching with fresh bruises.

She recalled the pain so vividly that her grip loosened and the sword flew out of her hands, landing somewhere in the grass as she fell to her knees, exhausted. She pulled up blades of grass, still wanting to hold on to that fury.

How she wished it had been her to spark fear in his eyes before he breathed his last. _No, it was an arrow that felled him. It was instant. He had no time to be afraid, the sadistic shit._

One thing comforted her: the memory of the rage on his face when he saw her sitting in her cell, unbroken. Oh he had not gloated then. Not until she was free and he kept her home from her.

“Minerva?”

She hadn’t heard him approach. She looked over her shoulder and saw Martin approaching her, a concerned frown on his face. The look ached in a sweet way. She crossed her legs to sit more comfortably. “What are you doing out here? It’s cold.”

“I came looking for you. You seemed upset earlier. You’re not even wearing a cloak.”

“I don’t feel particularly cold right now.”

“I can tell,” he said, sitting down beside her with a short glance at the practice dummy. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

She sighed, knowing she could not in good faith keep anything this important from him. Hadn’t he shared his secrets with her, trusting her with the darkness in him? “Do you remember the news Burd brought?”

“About Captain Phillida? I do.” Martin shook his head with a sigh. “The lengths those assassins will go through…But you needn’t upset yourself over that. You have enough to worry about without--”

“Captain Phillida was the man who framed me,” she said quietly, staring towards the Imperial City. “He’s the one who had me dragged into prison and had me beaten and interrogated. He held my face down to the floor of that prison, telling me I deserved what he was doing.”

Shock seemed to have silenced until moments later he finally asked, “What?”

She turned to face the surprise on his face, recognizing the spark of anger and disbelief in his pale eyes. “‘Lie down and eat the filth off that floor. It’s no less than you deserve, Saturnius.’ That’s what he said to me as he stepped on my back when I tried to get up.” She raised a hand to touch the corner of her mouth, where Phillida’s heavy gauntlet had split her skin open. All that remained was a tiny line half a shade darker than her skin tone.

Worse was that wretched fear he’d left her with. The dark. Confinement. The very though of it made her feel small as a pebble.

She went on, “Some people deserve to die for what they’ve done. I don’t much care for the rhetoric that claims that if I kill them, I become them. Whatever happens to me is between myself and the Divines.” Admitting this to him, of all people, was likely one of the hardest things she’d ever done. Still, everything came out like a flood. “It’s just hard to truly experience that for myself. I never realized how much I wanted to make him crawl until today.”

Minerva stared down at her knees, shame crawling through her and replacing all the rage in her. Then she heard Martin say softly, “It didn’t matter if he lived or died. You just wanted to make him suffer.”

“I did. That’s what shames me.” She ran a hand through her hair, snow having settled on her head. “Talos’s sake, this isn’t me! The man was petty and resentful! In the end it makes _him_ pathetic, but he was still a Legion Captain! He did his best to beat the Brotherhood but I just don’t care! I wanted him to pay for what he did!”

To her surprise he doesn’t leave her, his arm curling warmly around her as he kissed her temple. His grip was tight on her arm and his voice shook very slightly when he said, “It’s alright. Believe me, you have every right to hate the man. He did you a grave injustice…” He sighed heavily and looked as incensed as he did in Kvatch, that hate kindling in his eyes. “Gods, if I had him here I’d kill him for that alone.”

She chuckled bitterly. “I’d have had my boot on his chest and my sword over his neck, and he’d likely give me that smug smile. In the end he’d be right all along: I was a murderer. Gods’ blood, what’s wrong with me?”

“If you didn’t have such thoughts then I’d doubt you were human,” he said gently, hand softly running up and down her arm. “He hurt you. You want to hurt him back. It’s natural to feel…unsettled after hearing what finally happened to him. Perhaps the gods saw fit to punish him in their own way. All that matters is that you’re free. You are saving all of Cyrodiil and he ended up a corpse floating face up in Leyawiin.”

Minerva watched a satisfied smile appear on his face and she laughed with relief. Whatever his words for Phillida, it was…good to be allowed to feel human. “I can see you weren’t a priest for nothing,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder. 


End file.
